With regard to narrow passes, if you can occupy them first, let them be strongly garrisoned and await the advent of the enemy.

The dance of battle is always played to the same impatient rhythm. What begins in a surge of violent motion is always reduced to the perfectly still.

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night.

There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.

Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small. The difficult things in this world must be done while they are easy, the greatest things in the world must be done while they are still small. For this reason sages never do what is great, and this is why they achieve greatness.

Those who are victorious plan effectively and change decisively. They are like a great river that maintains its course but adjusts its flow.

To plan secretly, to move surreptitiously, to foil the enemy's intentions and balk his schemes, so that at last the day may be won without shedding a drop of blood.